Mobile payment users will increase to 790 million in 2020: Alipay and Meituan Pay build a closed business loop

With the popularization of mobile smart terminals, the acceleration of digital transformation, and the development and innovation of mobile payment technology, the usage scenarios of mobile payment have gradually become diversified and vertically segmented, becoming the mainstream payment model in society, and market supervision has continued to improve.

As the scale of mobile payment transactions continues to grow, major Internet giants have focused on segmenting scenarios, and mobile payment scenarios have continued to move towards diversification.

Data shows that catering consumption, consumption in small physical stores/convenience stores, and online catering consumption on e-commerce platforms have become the three scenarios in which users most frequently use mobile payment tools. Catering consumption, as the primary payment scenario for mobile payment users, has become a strategic stronghold for players such as Alipay and Meituan Pay.

The scale of Chinese mobile payment market users has maintained steady growth in the past five years. According to data from iiMedia Research, the scale of Chinese mobile payment users reached 733 million in 2019, and the penetration rate among netizens continued to rise. iiMedia Research analysts believe that with the maturity of technology and market development, mobile payment will cover more scenarios, and the scale of users is expected to continue to rise. It is estimated that the scale of users will reach 790 million in 2020.

From the perspective of market competition, the giants in the mobile payment industry are competing for segmented scenarios and expanding the market in retail, transportation, overseas, medical, and life scenarios. Among them, Alipay and WeChat entered the market early and seized a large number of users by leveraging their respective platform advantages. Later, they occupied a large market share by expanding offline scenarios. iiMedia Research analysts believe that China's mobile payment market has broad space. With the diversification and vertical development of mobile payment scenarios, mid- and low-end payment institutions still have great potential in segmented fields.

According to data from iiMedia Research, China's mobile payment scenarios developed in a diversified manner in the first half of 2020, and catering consumption became the primary payment scenario for mobile payment users. iiMedia Research analysts believe that the layout of high-frequency and rigid consumption scenarios will help mobile payment institutions seize the minds of users, increase user stickiness, and thus expand market share.

Take Meituan as an example. As a platform in the field of local life services, it covers a wide range of offline payment scenarios, with 6.3 million active merchants covering 2,800 cities and counties, and most of the scenarios are rigid demand and high frequency. In addition, the platform has a huge user scale of 457 million, which has laid an excellent development foundation for payment services. iiMedia Research consulting analysts believe that Meituan payment relies on the large number of highly sticky users and rich scenario layout of the Meituan platform to establish a relatively complete payment ecosystem, and the payment business and other businesses play a synergistic effect, and the comprehensive competitiveness is increasingly strengthened.

In fact, payment has high frequency and financial attributes. It is the real entrance to C-end users and traffic, and is also an important step in forming a closed-loop business strategy.

However, there are many players in the current mobile payment market, each with its own advantages in terms of users, scenarios, terminals, technology, etc. The huge market capacity provides a broad space for development for all players, which also means that market competition will become increasingly fierce. Using payment as the entry point and using payment data information to provide users with one-stop closed-loop payment services and then expand more profit channels is the key to the sustainable development of mobile payment players.